For the first time in 30 years, IFHTSE has appointed an honorary president. Honorary presidents have rendered outstanding and continuous service to the Federation over many years, not necessarily as president. They have given the Federation its shape and standing in their time and have enlarged its scope, initiated new activities, or renewed and reinforced its structure and been the face of the Federation for the public. Upon recommendation of the Executive Committee and approval of the Governing Council, IFHTSE confers to Dr. Zoltán Koloszváry this honor for “his outstanding leadership to IFHTSE and his dedicated, successful, and long-term service as its president and treasurer.”
Dr. Kolozsváry has provided outstanding leadership for several decades, beginning in the 1970s. His multilingual abilities (he will happily communicate in his native Hungarian and Romanian as well as in English and German) have always ensured a good level of understanding at many meetings.
His efforts to maintain IFHTSE as an organization of international relevance in the critical fields of heat treatment and surface engineering have been constant and much valued. For example, after the changes in the USSR/Russia, he was central to the restoration of active Russian contributions to IFHTSE, and membership of the Russian Heat Treating Society to IFHTSE.
Dr. Kolozsváry participated in his first international conference held in Switzerland 1968. He attended many meetings and conferences of the International Federation for Heat Treatment (IFHT) from the beginning of the Federation (1971), and he has represented Romania in the Federation since 1986. In 1973, he was invited to Liverpool University as a visiting researcher by Professor Tom Bell. A three-decade scientific collaboration was started with Prof. Bell on nine international projects in the field of surface science and heat treatment.
He became vice president of IFHTSE in 1995 (at the congress held in Teheran, Iran), and president in 1998 at the congress in Florence, Italy. During his period as president of the IFHTSE, he worked to strengthen the collaboration between the Federation and partners in Asia and North America. He became treasurer of the Federation in 2001, a position he held until 2016. He became a Fellow of IFHTSE in 2007.
Dr. Kolozsváry was born in 1937 in Târgu Mureş, Romania. He graduated with honors from the Technical University of Bucharest in 1959. He started to work in the machine factory “Encsel Mór” (Târgu Mureş) as trainee and soon became the head of the heat-treatment workshop. In 1963, he was commissioned to build a nitriding furnace and technology for large parts used for knitting machines. This development has ultimately determined his professional and scientific career where he focused on the effect of nitriding technology (salt bath and atmosphere treatments) on the wear of steel parts. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1970. The year after, he was nominated to establish a Romanian Research Institute for Heat Treatments and Surface Engineering. His patents on gas nitriding have been used by several companies related to the German vehicle industry, and his company Plasmatherm is well noted for plasma nitriding for many different applications. He became the scientific director of the institute Metalotehnica in 1976. He has published more than 200 scientific and technological papers in eight languages, several chapters in Metal Handbooks, ASM Handbooks, and the Handbook of Residual Stress and Deformation.
Previous honorary presidents of IFHTSE include:
- Dr. H. U. Meyer, director of Climax Molybdenum, served as the chairman of the Founding Committee and as president until 1974. He became honorary president in 1986.
- Urs Wyss served as secretary of IFHT (later IFHTSE) until 1988. He became honorary president in 1991. In 2006, he was awarded the IFHTSE Medal.
Members in the News
Rob Goldstein, executive director of Product Development and Strategic Planning, Fluxtrol, was recently awarded an ASM International Fellow for his contributions in the field of induction applications. He was also identified as one of the “Monty’s 30 Most Influential People in The North American Heat Treating Industry 2021.”
Fluxtrol has been a member of IFHTSE since 2019.
Calendar of events
April 26–28
European Conference on Heat Treatment and 2nd QDE – International Conference on Quenching and Distortion Engineering
Online event l Germany l www.echt-qde-2021.de
September 5–9
6th International Conference on Steels in Cars and Trucks
Milan, Italy l www.sct2020.com
September 8–10
4th Mediterranean Conference on HTSE
Istanbul, Turkey l mchtse2020.com
September 13–16
International Materials Applications & Technologies
St. Louis, MO, USA l www.asminternational.org/web/imat
September 29–October 1
14th HTS International Exhibition and Conference
Mumbai, India l www.htsindiaexpo.com
October 26–28
HK 2021
HK is the largest materials technology industry meeting in Europe
Cologne, Germany l www.hk-awt.de
April 2022
12th Tooling Conference
Sweden
September 2022
27th IFHTSE Congress / European Conference on Heat Treatment
Austria
For details on IFHTSE events, go to www.ifhtse.org/events
